Top producers of electric cars bring their best to expo

Zhongguancun's leading companies in the electric vehicle industry will flex their technical muscle at this year's China Beijing International High-Tech Expo.

Beijing National Battery Technology Co Ltd, a subsidiary of State Power Group Co, has a team with 15 years of experience in battery development and a nearly 20-year history of technological cooperation with international counterparts.

The company specializes in the development of high-capacity soft-package lithium iron phosphate battery cells. It is the only manufacturer in the country that produces these on a mass scale, said the company's deputy general manager Zhang Shaoyong.

To improve safety, soft-package battery cells are wrapped in a special membrane instead of a metal shell. They are designed to merely split open in the event of a severe impact, whereas their metal counterparts are prone to explosion, Zhang explained.

Soft-package batteries are also smaller in size, less expensive and have a longer life, he said.

The company offers a product quality guarantee of eight years or 300,000 kilometers.

Last year, the company completed a production line capable of producing batteries with a total combined charging capacity of 50 million ampere hours. It is still building a new plant with annual capacity of producing 300 million AH worth of batteries. It is expected to start trial operations by the end of this year.

The company's products have been installed on cars in some pilot cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

Zhang said that future strategy of State Power Group is "to provide optimized overall energy solutions to entire cities" that will integrate green power stations, alternative-energy cars and charging facilities in residential communities.

Jing-Jin Electric, the largest automotive traction electric motor manufacturer in China, now has clients worldwide, including automakers and powertrain system integrators.

It has developed a 150-kilowatt class magnet motor for traction applications, the world's most powerful. It is capable of accelerating an electric car from zero to 100 km per hour in less than six seconds.